Thank you so much for sharing! Interesting read. I’m so sorry you were shamed this much early in life. That stuff stays with you for a long time.

Have you researched polyamory? It kinda sounds like you could be poly, being in a good relationship but also wanting to pursue your attraction towards others. It’s a perfectly fine way to have a relationship/ relationships, it just requires a lot of communication and for everyone to be on board!

My story, if you’re interested :) I’m nearing 30.

I didn’t grow up in an environment that was necessarily unsafe for queers, just suuuper cis-heteronormative. There were two openly queer people in my year in high school and as far as everyone else was concerned, that was those peoples entire personality. Out of my friends from high school that I’ve kept on touch with, 4/5 realized they were queer in their early 20s. That should tell you what kind of an environment that was. We were already singled out and not well liked because we weren’t as wealthy as most of the students there, so it just wasn’t emotionally safe to be different in additional ways. This was a public high school that was hard to get into, requiring top grades and interviews to attend.

Same story in my home town (I commuted to high school because there were better schools in the nearby city, so they’re desperate places). One of my friends from there came out as lesbian at about 16 (she’s since realized she’s bi). It was the talk of the town. People had theories about what ‘caused’ it, such as her parents’ divorce or her step father having a strong preference for sons over daughters. My mum would always say things like how she hoped her kids were straight, not that she wasn’t ok with it, she just didn’t want us to have it as hard as that girl.

I’m something like demi sexual too, which made it harder to figure out. In retrospect, I realize that I’ve had crushes on friends or classmates as a teen, but I just explained them to myself as omg she’s so pretty and fun and smart, I want to be super close friends with her and also be like her. I don’t think I had crushes on boys. But because of the Demi thing, I never had any sexual urges towards any of them. I guess I was vaguely horny, but that wasn’t directed at people, more like just a hormonal thing. The rare times that I masturbated, I wouldn’t think of or look at humans, let alone sex.

First time I experienced sexual attraction was after I started seeing my first bf the first year of college. He asked me out, I liked him as a person so I agreed. The sexual attraction developed during the dating process. I was in a relationship with him age ~19-25, so I didn’t have opportunity to explore my sexuality with others. But after I realized that this was how attraction worked for me, I did a lot of thinking about myself and had conversations with my best friend, whose experience was similar. I guess that’s how I realized I was bi (and so did my best friend).

I was single for a year in my mid twenties. I dated a little, made out with people at parties, had a few casual encounters. I realized that my attraction towards fem people can be more immediate, but I still need to know them at least a tiny bit, like have a chat for a good while. With masc people, the sexual attraction pretty much HAS to follow romantic attraction. I casually dated a guy for a bit, I didn’t like him in a romantic way at all, and sex with him felt off. Sex didn’t feel off with the women I slept with, though they were acquaintances, and neither did it feel off with my ex or my current, male, partner.

I’m very comfortable with myself these days and very open about my identity. I think it did help that I was openly bi before I got together with my current (and hopefully forever) boyfriend. We do have to have some conversations about me not identifying as a woman (not as any gender, in fact) and what that means for his sexuality. He doesn’t have to label himself, he can even keep calling himself heterosexual as far as I’m concerned (and it isn’t anyone else’s concern either!) because he loves me for who I am and sees me and my identity the same way I see myself. We just need to check in every once in a while.

All in all, I’m very happy and content about my queer identity. It’s greatly helped to have two very close friends who went through similar things. Like, same school, similar experience in the community, similar timeline in coming out. I’ve also been lucky to have had private access to the internet from age 15 onwards. Online communities and resources can help tremendously.

If you wouldn’t do things with another woman then don’t look for another man to do them with. You guys decide what to do, but to me monogamy is monogamy no matter what you are attracted to. So if the only reason is you feel you missed out on getting railed by a fat cock, that’s not a strong enough one for risking your marriage.

Not judging, just chiming in that if you and your wife are still in love, don’t risk that relationship. She may agree to something even if she’s uneasy about it just out of love for you. So please be careful. It is a slippery slope, it can lead to irrevocable damage. There are enough divorces and split homes as it is. Good luck either way though. 🙂

I found out I was bisexual when I was 23 or so, in 1998. I was in the U.S. Navy. I was a submariner. There was a guy named J.J. that I was hanging out with a lot. Not so much off the boat, but when we were on watch together or underway we’d talk. I had a dim realization that I really liked hanging out with him and talking, a little more than I did with other people, but it was nowhere near a realization of what was to come. I was walking back to the barracks one afternoon with another one of my shipmates, and he said something about J.J. being “funny” or “bent” or some such euphemism. Something hit me. I carefully asked him what he meant. He said, “Oh, he’s gay.” … Holy cow it hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew that instant that I was attracted to J.J. and that that was what I’d been feeling around him.

I had known that I was into girls, but this guy thing was new to me. I spent a good year or two after that questioning my sexuality and experimenting (in my head) with what actually I was into. But really, that moment when I realized I’d been attracted to J.J. was all it took. I knew then I was bi, and all the questioning and exploring since has only confirmed it over and over again.

I did, though, start piecing together some past experiences. For example, I had another shipmate who was quite swishy. Definitely gay, especially considering that this was during the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” period. To be that outwardly gay at that time meant you couldn’t act straight even if you wanted to, because you’d definitely want to. He got a brick through his windshield once, and I’m sure he often felt unsafe. But anyway, there was an instance some time prior where I was standing somewhere and as he passed me by he poked me in the stomach and said something cute. It made me feel good, even though I wasn’t attracted to him. But I didn’t make the connection then that I was queer.

And then there was the neighbor boy when I was in high school. So cute! He played guitar and had long hair. I liked when he came around and I remembered feeling a certain way around him. I even bought him a magazine about his favorite musician and delivered it to his house a day or two before I left for the Navy. Boys giving gifts to other boys? Who does that? I did.

Oh, and the time I wrote a short story about a sexual encounter between two people from the perspective of the woman, and then my homophobic dad found it in my pants pocket. He wasn’t very happy. He called me a faggot. You’d’ve thought that I would have started questioning my sexuality at that point, but no. I was oblivious. Maybe autism had something to do with that.

It’s been twenty-some years now, and I’ve had wonderful experiences with both guys and gals. I like being bisexual. It’s just a part of me that I get to experience, and it’s a community of people that are cool to be around. The world of LGBT people has changed a lot since I came out to myself. I never actually hid my sexuality from anyone ever, but that was made easier by the fact that I’m fairly straight acting and I do still like women, so I pass as straight easily, even when I don’t want to. But nowadays you almost don’t have to hide it anyway. It seems like people don’t need to pass their whole lives now in the closet. At least not after becoming an adult.

I’ve told upfront every partner I’ve been with since. I told my Dad before he passed away. He was okay with it, I think. He was already thinking about his mortality at that point, so he didn’t have much energy left for hate. I told my Mom. She was a little uncomfortable with it, but embraced me and told me she loved me. I’ve spent time at any Pride Center I’ve been around, and I was on the board of the Pride Center in the last place I lived.

It’s now very common for people to call themselves “pansexual” instead of “bisexual”. I asked my last girlfriend what she meant when she said she was pansexual. She tried to explain it, but it just sounded like bisexual to me. She told me that bi people only like cis men and cis women. That’s demonstrably not true, but she didn’t appreciate it when I told her that. (Ah yes, still an aspie, I am.) When I say bi, I just mean that I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree. Nowhere in my understanding of being bi does being cis or trans come in. And that’s how I understand the pansexual identity as well. I’ve also since had a few periods of gender fluidity, but nothing lasting, and I am polyamorous.

And proud!